Driven by Passion, Curiosity, and Dedication: Creating My Personal Mission Statement

For a work project, we were asked to develop personal mission statements and create Individual Development Plans.  As a former classroom teacher, I'm well familiar with Individual Growth Plans, but never before have I worked so diligently to consider my personal goals and mission because those forms previously created as a teacher were driven by the school's mission statements or the organization's overall strategic plan. Over the past few weeks I've been reading texts that I thought would help with my task of developing a personal mission statement, and I've been musing on my personal attributes, goals, and values.

One of the websites I visited suggested asking friends to tell me my top three attributes, so I asked my family and friends on Facebook to respond. I cut and pasted their responses to create a word cloud, so I could visualize my greatest attributes.  Other tips suggested by Gala Darling were similarly suggested on Franklin Covey's site as well. Using all of the sentence starters below, I drafted a somewhat cohesive mission statement to keep me going on this personal journey.

I'm at my best when...
I'm at my worst when...
At work I really like to...
In my personal life I really like to...
My natural gifts and talents are...
3 people who have influenced me most & one attribute they possess...
On my 80th birthday I hope people say....Renee is...
The image I'd like to project is...

______________

Since I'm reading a book a week, I selected Susan Cain's Quiet:  The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking to read last week.  Learning more about my introverted self and how to leverage my strengths fed directly into my Individual Development Plan.  I especially enjoyed the sections on the differences between shyness and introversion.

"Many people believe that introversion is about being antisocial, and that's really a misperception. Because actually it's just that introverts are differently social. So they would prefer to have a glass of wine with a close friend as opposed to going to a loud party full of strangers."

"Now, shyness, on the other hand, is about a fear of negative social judgment. So you can be introverted without having that particular fear at all, and you can be shy but also be an extrovert."

As I proceed with my Individual Development Plan and living my personal mission statement, I suspect I'll benefit from knowing the power of my introversion.